


We Work in the Dark

by beeawolf



Series: Bilingual People With Knives and Emotional Problems [2]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-03 03:02:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11523180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beeawolf/pseuds/beeawolf
Summary: "Are you following me for a reason?" Giovanni asks, pausing to lean against another streetlight for a moment. At this rate the sun will have risen before he's even halfway there."I told you. A corpse in the street is bad for business.""Ah, so you will be my savior then? Or will you be throwing my body into the river?""It depends," says Volpe sullenly, "on my mood."





	1. Allies

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is an AU! I developed Giovanni Auditore’s character too much even though he was already dead in the main storyline, and so here we are in this predicament of prequel-ish oneshots about a highly idealistic murderer. We are in the modern day, more or less. The earlier stories take place in Florence when Giovanni is a young man, and later ones take place in what I like to call Unnamed US City. We’re mostly following Giovanni and allies as they begin to form something very much like the Assassin Brotherhood in order to take on widespread corruption. Fun will be had by all (?). 
> 
> A small note: While Giovanni's character draws a lot of inspiration from the actual antimafia work taking place in the '80s and '90s, I feel sort of obligated to say that real-life antimafia heroes would not approve very much of his skulking in the shadows. If you'd like to learn about them, you may want to read about Judges Falcone and Borsellino.
> 
> Another small note: this universe does not have guns, because I have no interest in them. I have no other reasoning.

He leaps from rooftop to rooftop like it's nothing, feet flying – yes, flying is the word for it; propelled forward by a force just barely within his control. It is a necessity, that they have had to learn to move through their city like this, but sometimes to Giovanni it feels more like a destiny. Sometimes it wakes a soaring feeling in his chest, a sudden certainty: this is where he must be; there is no other life but this.

            He will not tell Mario that. It will earn him nothing but laughter and another accusation of being _too romantic, Giovanni; this is not one of your storybooks_.

            He knows that, of course he does. Besides, there will _be_ no one to tell their story if they do their job well...

            Something below his foot shifts as he lands now at the edge of a rooftop, and his boot slips, his leg slides just a bit too far backward, and that is all it takes.

            It's a long way to fall, but Giovanni knows _how_ to fall, and when he sits up on the stone-paved street, dazed and vaguely aware of a throbbing ache from everywhere and nowhere, he can't help feeling a little cheerful at the lack of serious head injury. He and Mario had never practiced falling from quite _that_ much of a height.

            He blinks a few times, waiting for his breath to come back to him, does a cursory check for any blood, and then reels to his feet. The world reels with him – or maybe against him – and Giovanni sways more drunkenly than he feels, bracing himself against the nearest solid object – a streetlight. Normally to be avoided when running illicitly through the city at night. He clings to it for a moment anyway, breathing, dizzy. The ache seems to have decided to settle in his ribs, and now each breath he draws brings sharper pain.

            It seems to take an age before he can move himself forward, centuries from one step to the next, and hardly any time at all to slide back down to the ground again. Giovanni waits. He can be patient, no matter what Mario says. He will wait until he can stand again, and then he will find his way home – moving from streetlight to streetlight if he has to. Broken ribs are not the worst thing, and if the ground would just stop swaying –

            "Would you tell me something, please?" inquires a voice from the darkness, and just like that Giovanni lurches up again, clinging still to the light post, cold prickling at the back of his neck. He has three knives within reach, and his hand moves toward the one in his coat pocket.

            "Are you stupid," the darkness goes on, "or were you hoping to die?"

            "I am armed," Giovanni answers.

            There is a laugh. "Stupid, then." A shadow parts from the darkness then, stepping toward him, hooded and slight. He stops at the very edge of the light, and Giovanni can make out a small smile.

            " _Buona sera, signore_ Auditore," he says. "Have you injured anything important?"

            Giovanni narrows his eyes, his hand closing around the hilt of his knife. "I don't recall making your acquaintance, _signore_...?"

            "No," says the shadow. "La Volpe."

            "I am sorry?"

            "I am called La Volpe," the shadow clarifies, and then smirks. "And many other things. But I did not need to make your acquaintance to know your name. Giovanni and Mario Auditore, _i fratelli brillanti,_ raised in Firenze, trained in Monteriggioni, although apparently not well..."

            Giovanni scowls, and pure irritation now has him standing on his own. "La Volpe is not a name."

            "I have also been called _tagliagole_ ," La Volpe offers.

            "Why do you know me?" Giovanni says, ignoring this.

            "Everyone knows you. The brothers who fly through the city at night. Who carry knives and secrets...That is, everyone who _also_ carries knives and secrets knows you. Which is only a few. I would not worry." La Volpe's smirk fades as he steps closer, and Giovanni blinks dizzily at him, clutching the knife but not moving. "You should never land at the edge of a roof that way," Volpe says, almost sounding annoyed now. "Especially not on the riverside. The tiles come loose all of the time."

            " _Sto bene_."

            " _Si, si, bene_ , only broken ribs, hm? You know, it is always bad for business when they find a corpse in the streets. It does not matter whose it is."

             Giovanni just grunts and turns away, carefully. Volpe is proving no threat, or at least, not enough of one to waste the few hours of darkness left on. And his balance is coming back to him now. The pain is sharp as before, but he will get used to it in time. He always does. It must have only been shock...

             He takes a step forward, does not fall, and says, "What business is this?"

            "I have also been called _tagliagole_ ," Volpe repeats, walking alongside him with an exaggerated slowness that feels just a little bit mocking. "But I am mostly a thief."

            "And what do you thieve?" Giovanni asks, as though they are having a perfectly normal, polite conversation. The ground seems to slip away a little bit here and there, but he stays standing through agonizing step after step. Hunched over and wobbly but standing, still standing, which is the most important thing. Pain is only pain.

            "Whatever is necessary," Volpe answers. "And what is your business?"

            The question comes so swift and sharp that Giovanni is momentarily distracted from his mission. He stops and looks at Volpe, eyebrows raised. "I thought you knew me."

            Volpe looks annoyed again. "I know you oppose the mafiosi," he says, after a moment, and Giovanni shrugs at this and starts inching his way forward again.

            "Is that so unusual?"

            Volpe keeps pace alongside him, taking one step for his every three. "It is the way you do it."

             "Hm. Which is?"

            Volpe only scowls, and Giovanni smiles.

            "So you are not all-knowing."

            "I know Bartolomeo D'Alviano taught you to fight," Volpe offers. "I do not know who taught you to climb, but they seem to have left out some key details."

            "Are you following me for a reason?" Giovanni asks, pausing to lean against another streetlight for a moment. At this rate the sun will have risen before he's even halfway there.

            "I told you. A corpse in the street is bad for business."

            "Ah, so you will be my savior then? Or will you be throwing my body into the river?"

            "It depends," says Volpe sullenly, "on my mood."

            "You are from Venezia," Giovanni says abruptly, mostly to distract himself from the way his ribs are burning as he steps forward once again. (Pain is only pain, is only ever pain...) "I can hear it."

            Volpe seems unperturbed. " _Si_."

            "Why are you in Firenze?"

            "There is no life left in Venezia," Volpe says, without any apparent emotion.

            "But in Firenze..."

            "Firenze burns."

            Volpe's tone is admiring. Giovanni casts his gaze up and out over the small patches of red visible in the darkness, the rooftops lit here and there by a streetlamp. In the morning, the city will rise red and gold and white into the world; it will wake aflame.

            "Yes," he agrees, proud.

            They walk in silence for a little while. Giovanni reflects that probably he should not be leading a stranger who calls himself after a forest creature to his home. But – Mario will be there and armed, and this man is...this man could have killed him and thrown him to the river long ago if he had truly wished Giovanni ill.

            "You and your brother, you are skilled," Volpe says suddenly, his tone careful. "I know of...some of your works. But you will be found out soon if you are not more cautious."

            "Is this a threat?" Giovanni asks, without much interest. Better to talk, better to talk and think less about the pain. 

            "It is a word of warning," answers Volpe. "From a friend."

            "Oh. So we are friends now."

            "I have not yet thrown you into the river."

            " _Grazie mille, amico_."

            Volpe smiles, showing a hint of teeth. " _Non c'è di che_."

            "And how do I become more cautious? Should I name myself for an animal? Will that help?"

            Volpe snorts. " _You_ could not pull it off. I will show you how when you have recovered, if you will tell me what it is the Auditore want from Firenze."

            Giovanni considers. "Light," he settles on. "Light where there is darkness. Truth where there are lies."

            Volpe gives him an odd look. "Is that all? Not justice or liberty or world peace too?"

            "Light," Giovanni repeats. His head is spinning. "That covers most of it, I think." He stops walking, presses a hand to his forehead, wincing.

            "You will need a doctor," Volpe observes. He seems unconcerned.

            "No," Giovanni murmurs.

            " _Si_. I know someone discreet. Go home, and I will find her for you."

            "Because we are friends?" Giovanni asks, letting his hand fall away.

            "Because you are a fool who falls from rooftops," Volpe answers. He is already turning away, disappearing back into darkness. "Go home. Paola will come to you. And then we will speak again of business."

            " _Va bene_ ," Giovanni answers, because he is too tired to answer anything else. And there are so _many_ knives in the house. And Mario. Yes, La Volpe is no threat.

            No one responds from the darkness. So Giovanni keeps moving, keeps thinking.

            It would be good, to have allies. They would need to be careful, but it would be _good_ , if it were done right. He will discuss this with Mario, if he makes it back alive.


	2. Justice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't condone murder.

"Giovanni, come here," comes Mario's rough voice, and how does he sound so calm? How can he sound this steady? He's steering Giovanni away from the –

Blood-soaked, blood-soaked, everything is blood-soaked, and the _smell_...

\-- from the mess. He has one hand on Giovanni's shoulder and the other at his back, keeping him upright, keeping him steady.

Steady.

He had never meant...He had only promised to do what needed to be done, and there were some men, some men whose evil would live through them no matter what cages you put them in, no matter how well you hid them away, and anyway is it not a cruelty to hide them away? To hold them where their minds would unravel into fear and darkness? Is that not a form of torture? Death is kinder than that. Death is gentler than that. And yet, and yet...

There is blood on his cheek and he does not know how it got there. He wipes at it automatically, and Mario tells him no. _No, fratellino, keep walking_. Had he stopped? No, he is walking with his brother through the trees, and he thinks he can feel La Volpe somewhere above them, or perhaps behind. (La Volpe is a kind of ghost, he thinks, and not a man at all. A living shadow, and one to call friend at your own risk.)

There are so many trees in the countryside, both young and ancient, sparse and sheltering. They had passed the endless lemon groves on the way in, and now they are moving through a wooded patch of land that seems to belong to no one.

They pause here in this dark refuge ( _we work in the dark_ ), and Giovanni wipes at the blood on his face again. Mario does not tell him to stop. La Volpe, the living shadow, appears from nowhere Giovanni can see, and says, "It needed to be done."

Giovanni looks at him, at his strange eyes and impassive face. "Now we are no better than them," he answers. His voice sounds calm, too. Perhaps Mario is not so steady as he seems.

"This was your idea," Volpe says. There is no accusation. He circles around them, and it would be threatening if Giovanni did not know the ways in which this shadow shows his nerves. "It is like you said," he goes on. "The magistrates, the government... 'Their justice comes too late.' It is what you said. That man would have killed innocents."

"We might have brought them evidence," Giovanni murmurs, and now his voice does falter a little bit. But only because the soft earth seems to be falling endlessly away from him, and he has to stumble forward to keep his footing, one hand pressed against rough, cool bark. "A trial would have rooted out more of them, brought more into the light." He is unraveling his own reasoning, he is second-guessing his own justification for this worst of crimes...

"Little brother, we did the best we could," says Mario. "You know that. The trials never go anywhere. Their poison reaches too far. You said this."

He said this. He said this, yes. Giovanni closes his eyes and lets himself lean against the tree. "I know," he says. "I know."

He had not thought that it would be easy to kill. But he had armed and armored himself with these noble reasons, these stubborn convictions of his. He had armed himself with the numbers of innocent civilians who had already died,  the numbers who would die without intervention. Each individual a part of a family, a life, a story that would end too soon for the greed and the arrogance of one man.

So he replaced that, then, with the arrogance of another. Who is he to decide who lives and who dies, who is he...?

Giovanni breathes. He opens his eyes, and focuses. "The Barbarigo will be angry," he says. "We will need to watch them."

" _Ma certo_ ," Volpe says. "It is already being done."

Mario only gazes at him for a moment. "We do not have to go on with this," he says finally. "Even this..." He does not say murder; he does not name it at all. "...is far more than we ever had to do. Even this will help enough."

"No." Giovanni shakes his head, his fingers digging into the tree bark. "No one will – no one else is helping them," he says. "The...the honest people, the innocent people, families, children...No one else... If someone else will step in, then... But Mario, there _is_ no one else." He's aware of his voice cracking, of the brokenness of his words. And he is also aware, terribly aware, of the truth of his words. It is a vise in his chest, tightening and tightening.

Mario rests a hand on his shoulder again. "I know," he says simply, gentle in as far as Mario is ever gentle.

"It needed to be done," says Volpe again.

Giovanni breathes deep the scent of the trees, a clean smell that chases out the lingering metallic taste in his mouth.

"Little brother," says Mario again. "We should go home."


	3. Safe

Once, when they were young, before they'd left Firenze, Giovanni had not come home.

            It was summertime; Maria remembers because Ezio had just turned a year old the week before. He'd been such a happy baby, laughing at the slightest provocation, and that evening he'd been wobbling determinedly after Federico, who had dragged every toy in the house into the living room and was concocting some sort of convoluted story that he explained enthusiastically to Ezio as he went. (Ezio, Ezio, this one is the bad guy and this one is the good guy, see, and this is their house and – look, Ezio, you aren't paying attention.)

            That evening was a quiet one, and so Maria had busied herself with cooking, trying out new recipes for their someday-cafe. They'd gone looking at properties earlier that spring, before she'd found out that she was pregnant, before Giovanni had gotten drawn into the most complicated job he'd ever taken on. Mafiosi, he said, but he would tell her no more than that, and she found that she didn't want to know. Didn't need to know.

            Sometimes, earlier on, she would press him for details, and he would always give her everything he could. But as time went by, and their sons were born, and Giovanni kept on coming home safe night after night (if a little bruised) – as time went by, Maria stopped caring so much. Her husband did good work, and so did she. She was busy reviving the struggling arts community in their part of the city, setting up children's charities with the inheritance neither of them knew what to do with, being a mother, making a home for herself and her sons and the daughter on the way.

            Giovanni had called her later that evening from a number she didn't recognize. This was not unusual. She had not truly worried until she'd heard his voice.

            "They took me to the hospital," he'd said by way of greeting, somehow managing to communicate his amusement at this idea despite his thick, slurring words.

            "They what?" Maria had said, dropping a bag of flour on the counter and scattering the powder everywhere. "Who? What happened?"

            "Sto bene, Maria," Giovanni had said in that groggy, drugged voice, and then he'd sighed heavily. "Ah, cara mia, ti amo, ti amo, ti amo..."

            She had clung to the phone, shaking. "Giovanni, what _happened?_ " she'd asked, over and over, and over and over Giovanni had replied, "Sto bene, sto bene," and Maria had wondered what inept fool of a nurse had allowed him to use a phone.

            "Stay there," she'd finally told him, and she'd been getting ready to get Ezio and Federico in the car when Mario called. He was already at the hospital, he said, and he was truly sorry, and he –

            "Just bring him home," Maria had snapped, Ezio on her hip and Federico making a mess of the spilled flour and babbling at her, wanting to know what was happening and were they going somewhere fun and where was Papà? "Bring him home safe to me."

            And so it had been Mario who'd dragged Giovanni home that night.

            Maria had already put the boys to bed by the time he got back, and she was glad of that. Because Giovanni had stumbled in looking like death. Like death had finally gotten its hands on him. He wobbled where he stood, bruised and battered and beaming at her wearily, and that was when her fear had truly turned to anger.

            "You promised me," she said, "when we were married. You told me you'd come home safe."

            "Cara mia," Giovanni had said gently, stepping forward and promptly stretching a hand out to catch himself on the wall.

            " _Safe_ , Giovanni!" Maria said, hissing the words, trying not to wake their sons – Federico would wake back up if he so much as heard a pin drop. "You told me you'd be safe, you'd keep us safe –"

            "I'm sorry, my love," Giovanni mumbled, shaking his head and wincing and going still again, leaning heavily on the wall.

            "Maria," Mario had cut in gently, and when Maria had turned on him, all blazing anger, he shrank back. He'd looked from his brother to his sister-in-law, cleared his throat, and mumbled, "I should make some calls," before slipping away to the kitchen.

            "You want to go and save everyone, both of you," Maria had gone on, turning back to Giovanni as though nothing had happened. He'd gazed dolefully back at her, and somehow this made her angrier. "You want to go and protect the whole world and you risk your lives for scraps and meanwhile I have two boys at home asking me where their father is –" And then she'd stopped, angry tears springing to her eyes, to stare at Giovanni. Because he wasn't looking at her anymore – he was moving, lurching forward, and his movements were so painfully slow that it took her a moment to realize that he was heading toward the stairs.

            She'd followed his gaze, and her heart had jumped to see Federico peering through the wooden bars of the banister with wide, anxious eyes.

            "It's all right, piccolo," Giovanni had said in a near-whisper, leaning down so carefully at the bottom of the stairs that Maria had felt the fear bite through her anger again. What had _happened_ to him, her brave and impossible husband?

            Giovanni's entire arm trembled as he held it out to Federico, and somehow Maria hadn't been able to bring herself to interrupt as Federico crept over to give his father a hug, clinging in a way that must have hurt Giovanni, judging by the way he closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. But he hadn't moved except to cradle Federico closer.

            "You got hurt, Papà," Federico had said matter-of-factly, pulling back, and Giovanni had smiled, lowering his head to look down at his son.

            "Yes," he said. "But I'm all right now."

            "Bene," Federico said with an approving nod. And then he squinted at Giovanni. "Was it a bad guy?"

            "No," Giovanni said, letting the word out in a sigh, closing his eyes again. "No, he wasn't bad." And then Maria stepped in, clearing her throat, and Giovanni seemed to remember himself.

            "Go back to bed now, piccolo, or we'll make your Mammà angry," he whispered, and Federico nodded, hurrying back up the stairs with a swift obedience that he showed to no one else.

            When she was sure he'd gone, Maria stood over her husband with her arms crossed. "Look at you," she said, keeping her voice hushed. "You can't even stand. What _happened_ , Giovanni?"

            Giovanni let out a ragged sigh, closing his eyes again and leaning back against the wall. "I made a mistake," he said softly. "I'm sorry."

            "They wait up for you," she told him, nodding at the stairs. "They worry. Even Ezio."

            Giovanni said nothing for a moment, and she worried that he'd fallen asleep there. But then he opened his eyes and furrowed his brow at her. "I'm trying to give them a better world," he murmured, and it was such a raw, ludicrous, _Giovanni_ thing to say that Maria just paused, gazing at him before kneeling down to brush the hair from his face.

            "I know," she said, far more gently. "I know. But you promised. You promised me. Don't forget that."

            "I'm home," he whispered, his eyes finding hers. "I'm safe."

            Maria had sighed, and kissed his forehead, and helped him to his feet. There would be time enough for discussing promises. For now, she'd let him rest.


End file.
